


Every Time I Open Up (It Hurts)

by quicksilverdeancas (quicksilvermalec)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, But mostly angst, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel (Supernatural) Has Self-Worth Issues, Gabriel Has a Crush on Sam Winchester, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, No Smut, Non-Explicit Sex, Nothing is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Oblivious Gabriel (Supernatural), Oblivious Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Sam Winchester Has a Crush on Gabriel, Songfic, The Author Regrets Everything, Why Did I Write This?, breaking up, enjoy????, like seriously, no one is happy, that should be a tag wtf, unrequited requited love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-24 13:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19724938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverdeancas
Summary: Every time you walk out the less I love youBaby we don't stand a chanceIt's sad but it's trueI'm way too good at goodbyes#~+~#Sam and Gabriel love each other more than anything. But sometimes, love just isn't enough.





	Every Time I Open Up (It Hurts)

**Author's Note:**

> xD I apologize for my atrociously liberal use of italics.
> 
> This was so fun to write. I was inspired by the song "Too Good At Goodbyes" to write hardcore Sabriel angst.
> 
> So a quick warning before we begin: THIS IS ANGST. IT DOES NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. IF SHOWN IN A COURT OF LAW THIS WARNING WILL PROVE THAT ANY EMOTIONAL TRAUMA THAT YOU MAY SUSTAIN FROM READING THIS IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN FEET.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Enjoy...???

Sam gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes so tightly shut he thought he might give himself a headache. His fingernails were digging into the skin of his palms as he forced his clenched fists to remain at his sides. He heard the door to the motel room shut behind him with a quiet 'click' and against his will, his head dropped, hanging lifelessly off his neck in despair.

So that was it then. They really were done.

And this time, they were done forever. Because Sam didn't think he had it in him to keep fighting a losing battle just to keep Gabriel pinned down.

He didn't have the energy.

He let out a long breath, released the tension in his body, dropped his shoulders. It wasn't like they'd never been here before, never done this before, but this breakup had a note of finality that the others hadn't. And Sam had no fucking clue what to do with that.

Because he didn't want to let Gabriel go. He didn't want him to move on and keep living, archangel-mojoing between clubs and screwing random people and falling in love again (okay, Sam _really_ didn't want to think about him falling in love again). But he also didn't have a choice, because Gabriel didn't seem to even love him at all anymore.

And wasn't Gabriel terrible for him? Hadn't he murdered Dean a hundred times and forced Sam to watch? Wasn't he just a general run-of-the-mill douchebag who loved fucking with other peoples' lives, exactly like everyone else in his family?

(With the exception of Castiel. Cas was an angel - literally, figuratively, and metaphorically.)

But he'd apologized for killing Sam's brother, and Sam had forgiven him. And Sam loved him - more than he'd thought possible, when this all started - but he was a realist. And he didn't think, realistically, that they could come out of this intact, in one piece, and _together_.

Abruptly, he found himself thinking back to when it had started. It all began at a bar, with Gabriel popping in for the first time in months.

Sam had expected the archangel to annoy the fuck out of the two hunters by making dick jokes and suggestively sucking a lollipop, but instead he spent the whole night flirting with Sam. And Sam - to everyone's surprise, including his own - spent the whole night flirting back.

Even Dean was not drunk or oblivious enough not to notice that something was going on between them. The only problem was that even if Dean had asked (which he did), Sam couldn't've told him what it was.

#~+~#

 _I'm never gonna let you close to me_  
_Even though you mean the most to me_  
_'Cause every time I open up, it hurts_  
_So I'm never gonna get too close to you_  
_Even when I mean the most to you_  
_In case you go and leave me in the dirt_

#~+~#

The flirting continued. For weeks it went on, continually aggravating the very-minor-except-not-anymore-ever-since-you-started-leading-me-on crush Sam had been harboring for Gabriel pretty much since "I've been mopping this floor for six years."

There were a few pretty obvious and unsubtle hints dropped by Gabriel that he wanted to get into Sam's pants and they really should have made him more uncomfortable than they did. Gabriel's wicked little smile should have set off the DANGER! TRICKSTER! MURDERER! BACKSTABBER! TRAITOR! alarm bells in Sam's head but it didn't. And somehow Sam found himself on the edge, teetering inches away from falling for the pagan god-trickster-archangel.

Gabriel kept dropping by, giving them leads on cases, helping around the bunker, and shamelessly flirting with Sam whenever the younger Winchester walked by. Sam had no idea how to deal with it. Angels were ducking infuriating when they wanted to be.

And then they had one particularly successful hunt and the four of them all went out to celebrate. Except that 'celebrate' just meant Sam and Gabe getting so wasted that the tension snapped and they wound up in the bathroom giving each other handjobs.

Dean gave Sam a knowing smirk from the front seat of the Impala on their way back to the bunker, one that Sam ignored. And Sam was riding too high on alcohol and Gabriel right behind him and the promise of more when they got made it back to even think to ask if Dean was sober enough to operate a vehicle.

But then they were at the bunker and they hadn't crashed and nobody was hurt or in danger and Sam had a bed so he practically dragged Gabriel to his room and oh, did the archangel deliver.

A couple hours later, laying on his side, facing his Trickster, watching him breathe slowly (even though he didn't need to), Sam said, "we need to talk about this."

Gabe gave a short, hard burst of laughter. "So in other words, I'm screwed."

"No!" Sam backpedaled instantly. "I just meant that if we're going to do this, we're not going to do _just_ this. I don't do friends with benefits. It's all or nothing, babe, you're either in or you're out."

Gabriel looked at him amusedly. "Are you saying that if I want to have sex with you I have to be your boyfriend?"

Sam nodded. "Yep. Pretty much," he murmured casually, even though his mind and heart were racing.

Gabriel chuckled. "I think I can manage that."

And _woah_. That hadn't been the answer that Sam had expected. He'd thought he was going to get some version of "hey, it was good sex but I don't actually like you as a person, so if those are your terms I'm going to have to pass."

Gabriel stared at him like he was out of his mind. "Sam - _Sammich_. You really thought I was going to give you up? You really thought I don't like you?"

Sam didn't answer or even look at him, which was answer enough for the angel. "Come here," the brunet murmured, and Sam obediently slid toward him on the bed. The archangel pulled him against his chest and matched the rhythm of his breathing to the hunter's.

 _Yeah_ , Sam thought, _I_ _am_ _definitely in love with an archangel._

"So ground rules for being in a relationship with me," Sam began conversationally over breakfast the following morning. Gabriel groaned and put his head down on the table, and Sam smiled at the reaction he'd elicited.

"Rule number one; no matter how much I love you, Gabe - which is quite a damn lot, not gonna lie - we are never. _Ever_. Going to share a toothbrush."

Castiel choked on his tongue, and Dean and Gabriel both burst out laughing.

#~+~#

That was their one moment of peace.

Almost everything that came after that was rocky, bumpy, messy. They could barely handle themselves; there was hardly an ice cube's chance in hell that they could handle each other.

The first time, they broke up after a fight over heaven. Gabriel wanted to go back for something - now, Sam would be hard-pressed to remember what - and Sam didn't want to be away from him that long.

"Maybe it'd hurt less if I wasn't your boyfriend," the Trickster had said, and Sam had almost pinched himself to see if he was having a nightmare.

"You don't mean that," he'd edged carefully. Gabriel had glared at him with the angelic fury of Heaven glowing in his eyes.

"Yes I do," he'd muttered angrily, and then he had disappeared.

What little anger Sam still carried in him evaporated almost instantly once Gabriel was gone, replaced by overwhelming sadness and a feeling of _empty_ , like there was a gaping, Grace-shaped hole in Sam's soul.

He wished he could be angry; it would have made Gabriel's time in Heaven a whole lot easier. But he wasn't, not really. So, five days later, when the archangel reappeared in his bedroom, practically begging for Sam to take him back, well. Who was Sam to refuse that?

Dean had an angel that he loved more than the world, one he loved enough to move Heaven and Earth for if need be (in a very literal sense). Sam loved his angel, too, but looking at his brother in comparison to himself, Sam couldn't help but wonder if there was something about him that was so fundamentally fucked up that no one would ever really love him.

He couldn't help but think that maybe Gabriel was lying about loving him. He was a Trickster, after all. He wasn't exactly known for trustworthiness.

After the fourth time they broke up (this one was on Sam), the hunter gave up and went to his brother.

He hated having to even acknowledge the fact that emotions existed when Dean was involved, but he didn't really think he had any other choice, not if he actually wanted to _keep_ his boyfriend.

"Maybe I'm just not cut out for this whole 'love' thing," he mused in a subdued manner in the general direction of his brother. "Maybe I'm... I don't know, broken."

Dean sighed heavily. "Look, Sammy. It's so easy to love someone when everything is happiness and sappy conversations. Doesn't matter. What counts is if you can get through it when it's anger and arguments, whether you can find it in you to fight to _stay_ in love. That's how you know it'll last."

Sam looked at his brother fondly. "Is that how you and Cas have kept it up this long?"

Dean smiled back at him. "Yeah. We're still kickin' because we care enough to try and make it work when it's easier to let go. And that's what you've gotta do, Sam. Even if your angel is... one infuriating douchebag, he loves you, and you love him, so you gotta reach for him and keep him close, and you gotta do it soon or you'll lose him forever."

Sam willed himself not to start crying. Dean accused him of being a girl enough, and besides, his brother was pushing his way out of his comfort zone, he was being genuine and loving for Sam, and if he started crying Dean would probably retreat back into his shell, all "no chick-flick moments."

So instead he just slung one long arm around his brother-slash-best-friend's shoulders and said, "thank you, Dean."

"Any time, Sammy."

So he went back to Gabriel and he _tried_. He did everything he could think of to get his boyfriend to stay, to see, to understand.

But when it really came down to it, nothing Sam did was enough. Sam was never enough.

#~+~# ~~~~

So here they were, in a motel room, screaming at each other. And it wasn't like they'd never been here before, never done this before, but.

But, but, but.

Sam's whole life was one big 'but'.

"You're my brother and I'd die for you, _but_..."  
"I'll never leave you, _but_..."  
"I love you, Samburger, _but_..."

It was the names that really got him. Gabriel called him something different almost every sentence, it seemed. Sammich, Samburger, Samoose, Samsquatch. He hated his nicknames, but he secretly loved them, too. They were really ducking annoying, but they told him that Gabriel still cared enough to insert his name into random nouns.

(Sam also really loved just hearing "Sam" fall from Gabriel's lips, loved the way he formed the word, like it was something delicate and reverent and holy, but that was a completely different matter.)

Now he was just standing there, staring at the shorter brunet, at this perfectly flawed man he loved more than anything in the entire world. And Sam was out of words to say. Some part of him had already given up.

"What happened to us?" Gabriel asked, somehow managing to keep his shit together.

"There is no _us_ ," Sam replied sadly. "I'm starting to think there never was." He paused for a long moment. "Gabriel, this is going down and we both know it, so just... in three years, when I'm finally over you and actually doing okay, don't you dare waltz back in here like you never broke my heart."

Gabriel visibly flinched, and Sam turned away from him, not feeling capable of looking into his eyes.

"Sam," Gabriel groaned hopelessly, and Sam couldn't help but notice that it was just 'Sam', no ridiculous nicknames or pet names. Just his name. "I wish we didn't have to do it like this."

Sam didn't look at him, but shook his head. "No you don't. You don't, Gabriel, and that's what hurts. You don't care enough to fight for me. I have given you everything I have to you and you have nothing for me in return. It's too one-sided to be much of a relationship. We're a dysfunctional pair, you and I, and we were never going to work, but we could've lasted longer if you'd actually _tried_."

He could feel Gabriel's eyes burning a hole in his hair helmet. There was a very long, charged pause, and then Gabriel whispered, "I love you, Sam. More than you know." And then, even more quietly, "you deserve so much better."

And then he walked out, for the last time.

Sam sat there, on the edge of the shitty little motel bed, eyes so tightly shut he thought he might give himself a headache. And he just asked himself, over and over, what his huge fuckup had been.

#~+~#

 _But every time you hurt me, the less that I cry_  
_And every time you leave me, the quicker these tears dry_  
_And every time you walk out, the less I love you_  
_Baby, we don't stand a chance, it's sad but it's true_

_I'm way too good at goodbyes_

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah...
> 
> *cries* my poor babies are unhappy I love them so much but I also love making people SUFFER!!!
> 
> Love,  
> -Sil


End file.
